Stephen Keshi will report the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over the decision to sack him as the coach of the Super Eagles.
Ghana's leading football news outlet www.ghanasoccernet.com exclusively revealed that Keshi was sacked on Saturday night over his decision to apply for the vacant Ivory Coast job when he was contracted by the NFF to coach the Super Eagles.
Keshi who landed in San Francisco, the United States of America on Saturday, was fired on Saturday night for breach of contract even though he has two years left on his deal with the NFF, Ghana’s leading football news outlet www.ghanasoccernet.com reported.
According to a source close to Keshi, the coach will report the NFF for abrogating his contract without a just cause and that he will end up being paid for two years without doing any work for Nigeria.
“Keshi is well aware of the plot to remove him as coach of the team but he is not moved by that because he did not breach his contract,” the source told Complete Sports.
“If they had any valid proof of any breach of contract they would have sacked Keshi days after the report that he applied for the Ivory Coast was published. But they didn’t and resulted in sending people to him to resign his appointment as coach.”
The well connected source added that the NFF haven’t learnt from the lessons of Sylvanus Okpala who dragged them to CAS and won out rightly for his wrongful dismissal in 2013.
“They are still paying Okpalla and they want to do the same wasting the country’s resources doing that,” the source said.
“How can a board member collect $6,000 from tax payers money to investigate what has been proved not to be true?
“Keshi was approached by one of their cohorts on Friday that he should resign as coach but he refused because he did nothing wrong. Even the reported resume they say he sent was not his current one.
“If he wanted the Ivorian job he would have presented his current resume which entailed the 2013 AFCON triumph and the World Cup he led Nigeria to.”
Keshi has been under fire since a report broke out he had applied for the vacant Ivory Coast job and it that has effectively put paid to his reign as the coach of the national team.
The NFF also added that Keshi's sack was “without prejudice to the settlement of any existing and due financial obligations between the NFF and Mr. Keshi.”
The 53-year-old was into his second spell as the Super Eagles coach after holding the reigns from 2011.
He won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations with the Super Eagles but has been on a battle lane with the federation since then.